Luis Scott is the Owner of 8 Figure Firm, which provides consulting services and insider knowledge to national law firms. He has helped hundreds of law firms in the US reach multiple seven figures in revenue in less than two years. As a former lawyer, Luis has received numerous awards and accolades, including Super Lawyers’ “Rising Star,” The National Trial Lawyers Association’s “Top 40 Lawyers Under 40,” and the American Institute of Legal Counsel’s “10 Best Attorneys in 2017” for workers’ compensation.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [0:52] Luis Scott introduces the leadership crisis
- [3:03] Statistics highlighting the organizational leadership crisis
- [5:12] How to acquire leadership for growth
- [10:01] The core four plus culture process for defining your leadership needs
- [13:23] Three recruitment strategies: social media content, employee referral programs, and paying above market rate
In this episode…
Sometimes, the bottleneck in businesses isn’t sales or strategy; it’s a lack of leadership. 82% of young adults don’t view their boss as a leader, and 85% of Americans are dissatisfied with society’s leadership overall. With 57% of employees leaving their jobs due to poor leadership, how can you attract ideal candidates to help grow your business?
According to leadership expert and business consultant Luis Scott, organizations at every level face a leadership crisis. When evaluating candidates for these positions, Luis recommends defining your company’s leadership needs using the core four plus culture framework. This involves identifying four main competencies for potential candidates and assessing the candidates’ culture fit. Luis also advises leveraging social media to build an attractive brand, incentivizing employee referrals, and paying above market value to keep quality leaders engaged.
Welcome back to The Guts and Glory Show, as Luis Scott talks about solving today’s leadership crisis. He shares why leadership is often the missing link in business growth, how to attract leaders who elevate your organization, and competitive compensation strategies.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Luis Scott on LinkedIn | Website
- 8 Figure Firm
Quotable Moments:
- “You attract who you are, not what you want. So, therefore, become the person you want.”
- “If every business was full of A-players, leadership wouldn’t be as required.”
- “Leadership is required because the majority of people are really C and B players.”
- “If a leader can’t win, they don’t want to go there.”
- “The best talent wants to work for the best companies; they don’t want to work for your mom-and-pop shop.”
Action Steps:
- Define your leadership needs before hiring: Clarifying your core competencies and cultural fit helps avoid costly mis-hires and misalignment. A well-defined profile ensures you attract candidates who meet role expectations and team dynamics.
- Use the core four plus culture framework: Structuring interviews with targeted questions allows for a deeper evaluation of leadership potential and values alignment. This method uncovers red flags and strengths early in the hiring process.
- Build a strong brand that leaders want to join: High-caliber leaders are drawn to organizations with a compelling reputation and growth opportunities. A strong brand positions your business as a place where winners thrive.
- Leverage social media for recruitment: Promoting your culture and leadership opportunities online expands your reach and attracts mission-aligned talent. Consistent social content positions your business as a desirable workplace.
- Pay 20% above market to attract top leaders: Competitive compensation shows you value leadership and are serious about building a high-performing team. It reduces turnover risk and positions your company as a premium employer.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by 8 Figure Firm.
Founded by Luis Scott, 8 Figure Firm helps transform your law firm into a seven-figure or even eight-figure firm.
After spending years searching for the ideal law firm consulting program, Luis started 8 Figure Firm to use his hands-on experience to help other law firms achieve exponential growth.
Visit www.8figurefirm.com to receive a consultation call and start scaling your business today.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:00
Luis, get ready to be amazed. Get ready to be transformed. Get ready to believe it is possible you’re entering the growth zone on The Guts and Glory Show with your host, Luis Scott.
Luis Scott 0:20
Hey guys, welcome to The Guts and Glory Show, and I am your host, Luis, and every week we’re going to be talking about different things to improve yourself in business, as an entrepreneur, maybe as a leader, and how you can exhibit the guts that it takes to really succeed and in this world, because it is tough. Business is tough, and I think a lot of people are having a hard time with employees. They’re having a hard time with the people and the teams that they employ, and so, so I want to talk about something that I call solving the leadership crisis. This is going to be a three part series. There’s going to be three different talks about this and that is solving a crisis, because it is a crisis. It’s a crisis because all too often there are not enough leaders in this world, and the leaders that do exist have a hard time developing new leaders. People are frustrated with the amount of time it takes to develop leaders, and we find ourselves just giving up, throwing up our hands. Recently, I was talking to a colleague of mine, and they were sending me some information, or they were telling me some things about how they felt that maybe leadership wasn’t for them. They felt that working with people who were not A-players was frustrating. And one of the things that I told this person was that if you get frustrated when you work with anyone but a players, really, you’re not a leader, because a players, generally speaking, don’t need that much leadership, and they are self motivated without a lot of influence. And so I think that leadership is required, especially when you’re working in an environment where most of the people are not a players, despite the desire for all of us to have just a bunch of a players running around and just, you know, having life easy, if, if every business was full of a players, leadership wouldn’t be as required. And so leadership is required because the majority of people are really C and B players, and they need that constant accountability and motivation to be successful. And so this has become a crisis. It’s a crisis because we don’t know how to acquire them. It’s a crisis because we don’t know how to build them. It’s a crisis because we don’t know how to retain them. And so in this three part series, I’m going to talk about those three areas. How do you acquire leaders is going to be section one, how do you build leaders section two, and then how do you retain leaders is going to be session three. And so be sure to listen to all three sessions on this. Let’s get started with some statistics. 82% of young adults do not consider who they work for a leader. Now think about that for years, years and years and years, all we’ve heard is young people, they don’t know how to work, they’re lazy, they they don’t want to put in the grind. And I don’t believe that that’s actually true. I believe that the problem is that they are not being led. And if 80% of the workforce is C and B players, that means that the majority of young people, C and B player, young P people, or middle aged people, or old people, whoever it is, require some sort of leadership, but 82% of them don’t believe that they have a leader in the person that they work for. And so that’s a really big problem. You know, another statistic, 85% of Americans are disappointed with society’s leadership. We see this all the time with the political divide, right? We have this polarization in politics where people just they don’t respect the leadership in any way. You know, a Forbes article said that only 11% of companies surveyed believed that they had strong leaders. You can see the trend continuing to develop here, but, but here’s a statistic on the on the leadership side, and that is 72% of leaders feel overwhelmed by the responsibility, and 57% of employees leave their jobs and do part two to leadership. And so leadership is at a crossroads. There is a crisis happening right now, and I believe that if you’re trying to grow your business and you want to have a business that is thriving, you’re going to have to figure out this leadership issue and solve this leadership crisis. One of the things that I teach when I’m working with clients is that there are three phases of business, and I’m going to focus on the third phase of this business. And there’s three phases of business in multiple categories, but in this specific paradigm, is. What I’m going to be speaking in, and that’s the zero to $3 million phase. That’s where your focus is really client acquisition. And then I teach that three to 8 million, your your focus on people acquisition. And then the 8 million and above, it’s leadership acquisition. So we’re going to talk today about leadership acquisition. And how do you actually acquire leaders so that you can build a business that works for you? There’s there’s a quote. I don’t know who came up with this quote. I’m not sure who is, who’s attributed to. I when I went online to look at the Who’s it, who this is attributed to, there’s like, several different people. So I left it as anonymous. But the quote is, you attract who you are, not what you want. And I’ve heard that all my life. When I had a mentor in my early 20s, who used to tell me that all the time, it’s like you don’t attract what you want, you attract who you are, so therefore, become the person that you want to attract. And I remember thinking to myself, I need to become a better person. I need to become a better leader. I need to become a better communicator. I need to become a better teacher. I need to become a better employee, a better worker, a better boss. Because if I want to attract the top and I want to track the best, then I need to become the best. And it reminds me of a recent story of the University of Colorado. And Colorado had an atrocious team. One they were one in 11. The football team, they were one in 11, and they were lacking leadership. And I don’t know the whole story of the team. I mean, they could have had bad players, but what we do know is what happened after this new leader came in. And so many of you guys know Coach Sanders, Deion Sanders, Coach prime came in to coach the Colorado team. And what’s interesting is that he carries a level of swagger. He’s very, you know, he’s like a showboater. He believes in performing, but he also believes in and, you know, just letting him know, like, this is, this is this is who I am. And when he came in, I want to say, and don’t, you know, don’t quote me on this, but I think 75% of the players that were there left after he came in like they weren’t attracted to him. He wasn’t attracted to them. They weren’t going to be the type of player that he wanted, right? He wanted. He wanted to attract a type of player that was like him. Well, he started recruiting. They ended up filling the team. And two years later, they went nine and four and were very close to winning their their conference. So from the worst team in in college football to almost winning their conference in two years is a remarkable feat in college football because it requires a tremendous amount of recruiting, and he recruited some amazing players. In fact, in this year’s draft, he may end up with two first round draft picks and a Heisman Trophy winner, right? So he he attracted the kind of caliber of person he was, right, that’s who, that’s who he is, right. He’s, he’s an NFL legend. He’s a Hall of Famer. He’s the, you know, Heisman Trophy, elite type of person. And he attracted those type of people. And in fact, the local quarterback for the school where my kids go is now the quarterback at Colorado, and he’s apparently the number one quarterback in the country, was on Sports Illustrated at like 16 years old. So he definitely attracts the type of people who he is. So when we talk about acquiring leadership, what we’re really saying is, how do we acquire people that we want? And the answer is that we become who it is that we want. And so I think the first step is like self reflection is, is, who are you? Who? Who are you right now? And being honest with yourself is the person that you are right now. Is that person, the type of person you want to attract? I work with a lot of business owners, and I always tell them that they’re so consumed by the fact that somebody is not detail oriented, but they’re not detail oriented. Somebody may be unorganized, but they’re unorganized. Somebody may be messy, but they’re messy. And I always tell them, and I challenge them, if you want an organized, detail oriented and not messy person. Become that person. You become that person. And you will start a you will start, uh, attracting that type of individual. And if you can’t become that person, look to hire somebody who’s like that so they can be a part of the hiring solution. And so who you are is what you’re going to attract, not what you want. And so I want to talk about, how do we acquire these these leaders when I think about leadership, and the way that I define leadership, leadership is someone who guides, influences and motivates a group of people towards achieving a common goal or vision. So when I think about my myself and everybody has a different definition of leadership, some people say leadership is about getting your hands dirty. Some people say that leadership is about being the day to day. Some people say that leadership is all about leading by example and and a lot of those things are true, but leadership is really someone who guides influence and motivates a group of people towards achieving a common goal, and so how do we acquire them? The first thing I think you need to do is define your leadership needs. What is it that you need? What are the core competencies that you require in your. Leadership, I have a process called the core four plus culture process, and in that process, I always say, what are the four things that you need? Write 10 questions on each. What’s the culture that you you want? Write 10 questions on each that gives you 50 questions. Probably takes an hour and a half to to interview this leader, but ask the tough questions. What are the core competencies that you need. So, so often i i watch videos of people being interviewed, and I’m like, gosh, no wonder you’re interviewing bad these these questions are terrible. The questions you ask matter and the information that you extract matters as well. So what is the core competencies, competencies that you need? What are the qualities that you want? What are the qualities that you’re looking for in this leader? You know, one of the things that I always say is, if you want a really great leader, make sure that that leader has executive presence. They need to walk in the room. And people say, You know what? This? This looks like a leader to me. This feels like a leader to me. This, this, I mean, this person. It commands the room. And it doesn’t mean that they have to be boisterous. I was never kind of like an outgoing person. I’m the I’m kind of the kind of person who walks in a room and I don’t really talk to everyone, but people know that I’m not scared, people know that I’m not nervous. People know that I’m that I command the room. I don’t have a problem talking to people and telling them what needs to be said. You want to look for somebody who has executive presence and the last thing when you’re defining your leadership needs is you want to look for somebody who has the qualities that you need, so core competencies, the qualities you want and the qualities you need. And that’s how you’re going to define your leadership needs. So that’s, you know, step number one. Step number two is you have to build a strong brand. If you want to acquire great leaders, you need to have a great brand. The best leaders want to work for the best businesses. The best talent wants to work for the best companies. They don’t want to work for your mom and pop shop. The absolute best leaders out there want upward mobility. They don’t want to work for your mom and pop shop. These leaders are attracted to places where they know they can win. If a leader can’t win, they don’t want to go there. And so as you you rise in your need for leadership, and your leadership need becomes bigger and bigger and bigger to get the best. You’re going to have a you’re you’re going to need a brand that exudes the best. It has to exude a place where you can win. It has to have a reputation for long term employment. And so when I think about firms, I see this all the time. A firm will be one or 2 million in revenue, and they have this leader, and then they get to four and five and 6 million in revenue, and they go, I can’t get this leader to work. And I want a leader to work in my 7 million, 8 million, ten million business, and I want to pay them just a fraction more than what my current leader is getting paid. And unfortunately, that’s not the way it works. When you want when you want the best leaders, you’re going to have to pay more for those leaders. And the way you attract the best leaders is to build a strong brand. Again, with a strong brand, you’re going to attract the best because the best wants to work for the best. And I tell people all the time, make sure you’re using your social media. Social media is a powerful resource for acquiring leaders. The third thing is you want to have a proper recruitment strategy. And there’s three strategies that I’m going to talk about. Number one is social media content geared towards employee acquisition. Every 345, 10 posts. Put something about about employee acquisition. Talk about how much you love acquiring employees and leaders. Talk about your team, talk about the atmosphere, really engage the community from an employee standpoint. So I think that’s number one. Number two is, I think you you should pay your employees to refer. We used to have a referral program at our at our law firm, and they would pay. If you brought in an employee, you would get paid. So have a referral strategy. And then number three is pay 20% above market. And I know some of you are cringing at that, if the market value for a leader is 100 pay 120 and the reason for that is that you are less likely to see the person leave, and we’ll talk about retention strategies and session three, but you’ll be you’ll be less likely to see people leave when you’re paying 20% above market value. And so leadership acquisition is as all about knowing who you are, defining what leadership is all about, defining your leadership needs, your core competencies, the qualities you want and need. It’s it’s all about building a strong brand. Because the talent wants to work for the best companies. The leaders want to work for places where they can win, and they want to know that there’s a reputation of long term employment, right? And then lastly, acquiring leaders is all about recruiting properly, recruiting on your social media, paying your employees to also be part of the recruitment process, and then paying that 20% above market value. And if you do all that, you’re going to acquire leaders in your business, and your and your leaders are going to change your business in a way that you could never even imagine. So with that, stay tuned for session two on the next video, where we’re going to talk about how to build leaders that already exist in your organization, and how to take them to the next level so that your business can get to the next level. You’ve been listening to The Guts and Glory Show.
Outro 15:38
you’ve been listening to The Guts and Glory Show for more and to learn more about Luis, hit the website at Luisscottjr.com for consulting opportunities. Hit 8figurefirm.com that’s the number 8figurefirm.com We hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review and we’ll see you next time on The Guts and Glory Show.
